it’s a love fest.
Hi! I’m Kari. I’m editing this page. Welcome! Allow me to praise butches:
Why do I love butches? I like that behind a masculine image I can discover a woman’s body and mind. I want to help lesbian women who are drawn to masculinity, like I was, discover that this option exists. I never knew I could have what I have now. I love that my wife and I have many possibilities for intimacy: that we can use the “strap” and live the entire Kama Sutra like any heterosexual relationship, or not use it but know we have all the options. In my butch-femme relationship I’ve found a new understanding of the female body in its diversity and its similarity. I love it. And not just because my butch wife totally understands cramps, boob pain, and mood swings. She also understands what it’s like to be a female-bodied person in an intimate relationship, and I think that empathy is one reason our relationship has been so successful.
Love to all butch women everywhere,
Kari
Send us your love letters (which can be anonymous, of course!) to: your butch, your femme, femmes in general, butches in general, or anybody you wanna bathe in love here on SBD:
stonebutchdisco@gmail.com
Letters
March 18, 2023
A Love Letter to Butches
I see you. I see how you walk through the world unapologetically yourself. I see the strength it takes to go into a bathroom on a road trip worrying that you will be called out as suspect, yelled at, or worse… how strong you have to be in the face of people who think that you are wrong just for being you. I see the kindness in your eyes behind that gruff demeanor, the shyness underneath your powerful stare. I see the curve of your lips as you look at a woman, and the hesitation at not knowing if your advances will be appreciated and welcomed, or met with disgust. I see the strength it takes you to put on a tie and go out with a beautiful woman on your arm knowing that you could be the target for small minded men whose masculinity is threatened by yours.
I see how you melt when I look at you with appreciation and desire, how you puff up when I take your arm and walk confidently into a room with you, claiming you as mine... Daring everyone to see that I am yours.
I will be there to hold you when you are weary. I will be your soft place to land when it has taken all your strength to get through the day hiding your vulnerability to protect yourself and the people you love. I will be the one who sees you for all that you are, beautiful and handsome at the same time, inside and out. Strong and vulnerable, confident and wary, protector and lover. And I will open myself to you, confident that you will take care of me too.
I see you.
Let’s Dance.
By Queen Cordelia
April 5, 2023
Dear Butch,
I love you dearly. I want you just how you are. To me, your existence as a masculine woman is not a contradiction. It is a perfect balance that excites me and makes me feel safe at the same time. If you can hold that balance, what else can you hold? Your natural way of being is so beautiful to me. I love that under your masculine exterior is a soft, sensitive body and soul. A sweetness that you save only for me. In your arms, I feel protected without being condescended to. I know that you protect me not because you see me as weak, but because you know how beautifully I will bloom for you in the safety we create together.
I love what you build with your strong, careful hands. Whenever I make tea from the shelf you put up in the kitchen, my heart sings with joy. You spent a whole afternoon last summer installing the air conditioner. I thought we couldn’t do it at home, and wanted to hire someone. I was wrong of course. You’ve got a mind for plans and hands that get the job done. I should’ve known that.
I love your way of being a woman, and I’ll fight anyone who says that your masculinity contradicts your womanhood. I feel grateful everyday that someone like you exists. How lucky am I, to have a partner who is both masculine and a woman? Who views me as an equal and balances my femininity. Before I met you, I didn’t know how to express my femininity. Every time I tried, I was disrespected and taken advantage of. Femininity is a delicate thing, but you cradle it so gently. You heal the hurt places, make me safe to open again. I teach you emotions, you teach me the body. We breathe together.
I love to cook you a meal, and imagine the nutrients strengthening you. I love to stroke your back and hear you breathe out all the stress from your long day at work. I love when you tell me how glad you are to be home. You are my woman, and I am yours.
It’s a weird and confusing time that we live in now, where the people who claim to be “queer” allies will look at you and assume you are not a woman. They don’t know you (let’s be honest, they don’t even know what a woman is). They don’t know what your womanhood means to me, your femme. You, as a butch woman, are a safe-haven to me. You are a miracle; a fantastic discovery. You make this world worth living in. If you were not you, I could not be me. I find my femininity in relation to your masculinity, and in the understanding that we are both women– lesbians.
Knowing that masculine women like you exist fills my heart with joy and hope. There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t have to be anything but what you are. You don’t have to be a man. You don’t have to be a feminine woman. Butch is beautiful. Right now, there is a femme dreaming of you, longing for you. Be you, for her. Be you, for the girls who need to know that there is more than one way to be a woman. Be you, for you, because you deserve all the happiness, pleasure, and partnership in the world. I love you.
An adoring femme <3
May 24, 2023
I’d never dated a masculine woman before. Sure, I’d been with other femmes, and I can take the lead when I have to. My past relationships were fine – sometimes even good. But now? With her? I don’t think I can ever go back. Her gentleness, her leadership, her masculinity, has captivated me like nothing else ever has.
I think I’d always longed for a masculine woman. I have no interest in men, physiologically or psychologically, and even my male friends have never been what you might call ‘traditionally masculine’. Yet with my former femme partners, while I could lead, there was always a point where it became a chore. Even in the bedroom, even when I was enjoying myself, there was always an aspect of performance. At one point I even grew tired of compliments. We get it, I got you off, congratulations, let me go to bed.
My first thought when I met her in person was: Yum. For context this was our first date and I don’t make a habit of sexualising strangers, but when she walked through the door I just… I’d never seen anything so delicious in my entire life. No, that’s a lie – I’d seen butch women on the metro, walked past them in the street, and seen pictures of unapologetic mascs on Instagram. But now I was meeting someone who was interested in me. I wasn’t trying to catch a butch’s eye on public transit, desperately yet subtly hoping to convey ‘I think you’re impressive and beautiful but I’m also not being weird I just want you to feel appreciated I promise.’ Now there was a woman right in front of me who liked me, wanted to know more about me, and didn’t assume I was a straight woman giving her funny looks and being mildly homophobic.
She was so considerate on our first date. And our second and our third and all the way until now. She’s chivalrous and kind, and it’s been so radically different to dating other femmes. In past relationships there were always things we both struggled to do – practical chores that we took turns over, begrudgingly acknowledging their necessity but neither particularly enthusiastic. She’s different. She enjoys the planning, the organising, making sure I don’t have to take out the trash or carry all the groceries. There are things I do for her that she doesn’t do for me – I’ll mend her clothes, iron her shirts, pack her lunch. I’m starting to realise that equality doesn’t mean we both have to do the same things all the time. It just means we have to find the same amount of fulfilment.
I say ‘starting to realise' because it’s not been an easy path. She made it clear from the beginning that there were certain things in the bedroom she didn’t enjoy – things I’d always done and always assumed were done.
I thought I was being a bad partner. I thought I was being selfish and there was something wrong with me. That her boundaries were somehow my fault. How could I let her love me so completely and offer nothing back? How could I accept so much yet give her nothing in return? She’d had past lovers, female lovers, tell her she was broken. That she needed therapy to become comfortable with this touch or that. I couldn’t live with myself if I tried to do the same. She’d been nothing but open and honest – who was I to think I could change something so fundamental? We spoke about it. Sometimes I still think I’m being selfish. But I’ve stopped feeling guilty.
When we talk about our past experiences it always intrigues me. She never had problems finding hook-ups, but relationships barely ever manifested. When they did, they were littered with problems. She was always somebody’s first girlfriend, and more than one woman cheated on her with a man. I don’t care what certain spaces have to say about that – we all know that being left for a man feels worse somehow.
My history looked different. I could find a relationship if I really really tried, but even with the word LESBIAN all-caps in my dating profiles, I’d still get messages asking: ‘So, are you into girls?’. My girlfriend often jokes that I don’t understand my attractiveness, or how ‘typical’ women think about the world. I’ve constantly had to fight for other women to believe I was even interested, and then once they believed me ,I had to somehow convince them that I wasn't just experimenting, ready to ghost them as soon as I had my scandalous bicurious adventure.
Our social experiences were different too. She was always one of the boys – rowdy, assertive, competitive. Things became more complicated as she got older, when she had to navigate the grievances of womanhood whether she liked it or not. At one point she even told me she thought girls were evil. She couldn’t understand them, found their company stressful and confusing. But as a teenager she was barred from being one of the boys as well. She was stranded from everyone.
When I was younger nearly all my friends were girls, but there were still things I couldn’t understand. I hated having to invent crushes or pretend I was interested in discussing my favourite Disney prince. Eventually I asked my mum about male celebrities just so I’d have something to say. At sixteen one of the boys in my class referred to me as ‘fuckable’ and it made my skin crawl. After that boys started asking me on dates; men started pulling up to me in their cars and asking how old I was. Other girls told me my appearance made me lucky. I just thought it made me unsafe. I didn’t understand how anyone could want that sort of attention. I stopped inventing crushes and started inventing boyfriends just to make it stop.
By then I felt that I’d failed at being a woman because I didn’t want a man. When it became apparent that I wasn’t going to date anyone, my mother clung to the phrase ‘You just need to meet the right boy.’ My first actual relationship took her so off-guard she went into a three-month tailspin.
My girlfriend never had the opportunity to come out. Her masculinity was etched into her from birth. I remember her telling me about her 2nd Grade crushes – the girls in pigtails and flowery dresses. At that age she never even thought about it. She just knew they were beautiful and she wanted to give them daisies. Growing up changed everything.
When she began university, she even felt that she ought (ought) to transition. Her personality wasn’t right for a woman. She’d failed all the ways I had and so much more. There was no space to do what she wanted, to be what she wanted, and still be a woman. She’d left home thinking that university was an opportunity for acceptance. Instead, she was greeted with endless questions about pronouns and testosterone. At the same time, hundreds of miles away, I was trying to convince myself that if I were a real lesbian, I ought to desire a transwoman’s body. As a teenager I thought I’d failed at being a woman, and when I got over that I thought I’d failed at being a lesbian.
My girlfriend spent years debating transition until deciding to work with her body rather than against it. She started lifting weights with the intent of building strong arms, a thick waist, a broad back. Her muscle means all the more because I know how hard she had to work for it. I see the pride in her eyes when she flexes for me, when she benches my bodyweight for sets. Her body is no longer a source of pain – it is an accomplishment in and of itself. On my part, I had to be given permission to find peace. When a close friend, a transwoman herself, told me she only desired biological women, so casually and so comfortably, a switch flipped inside of me. I didn’t know that was acceptable. I didn’t know that was okay.
I sometimes think about the odds of my partner and I staying true to ourselves. The odds of us sitting through every conversation from every angle insinuating that we should change and still not giving in. The odds of us crawling through mediocre relationship after mediocre relationship and somehow finding each other. It took a decade’s worth of dates and shoddy relationships for me to meet someone I truly, truly, wanted. It took her even longer.
I love my butch for all the things she is and all the things she is not. I love her for her courage and her kindness, I love her for her masculinity and her chivalry, I love her for those moments when, despite all the world has put her through, all the sharpness she carries as protection, she looks me in the eyes with such open vulnerability I would fight an entire army to keep her soul safe. Butch women, stone women, you are whole and complete and beautiful as you are, and there is nothing you need to change or fight or fix. I love you.